Mendhi Audlin 0:01
What if there is power in generosity? What if the act of giving generously could open the doors to greater happiness, fulfillment, and prosperity? I'm Mendhi Audlin. And in this episode of the what if it all goes right podcast, you'll meet David Hancock, author of the new book, performance driven giving the roadmap to unleashing the power of generosity in your life. So buckle up and dive in to a generosity Joy Ride. Let's do it.
Unknown Speaker 0:36
rained down, what if you chase your dream, and it changes your goals.
Mendhi Audlin 0:49
I'm here with David Hancock, Wall Street Journal and USA Today best selling author, founder of Morgan James Publishing and co founder of performance driven thinking. He is also the co author of the new book, performance driven giving the roadmap to unleashing the power of generosity in your life. So welcome, David. It's so great to have you here.
Unknown Speaker 1:09
Oh, it's an honor to be here. So good to see you again. And I'm looking forward to sharing something. Oh, no.
Mendhi Audlin 1:17
Well, so let me ask you. So this is the wrote the roadmap to unleashing the power of generosity in your life? Why do you think this topic is so important right now?
Unknown Speaker 1:26
Oh, my gosh, it's I think it's important all the time, you know, but right now, you know, people are hurting, you know, people need encouragement and lifting up. And sometimes, whether it's through an organization or whether it's through an individual, that level of generosity, today, more than ever, might be just one aspect that they need, whether it's a financial burden, or just an encouragement, giving of your time or your resources or your money is exactly what people may need, you know, lives can be changed in a conversation lives can be can be changed by helping them to just get to the next pay day or giving them you know, shelter from from the elements, it's just, especially past COVID, with the suicide rate going the way it was and continues to climb, every little bit that we can be mindful, at least of where we can give or where we can serve, I think it's going to be very, very impactful. Now, obviously, from a business perspective, you know, giving has always been a phenomenal Guerilla Marketing trait. Certainly we want to give selflessly, but from a business perspective, giving is probably one of the most powerful Guerilla Marketing weapons you can have in your arsenal. And like, we can talk more about why later, but, you know, people respond to it subconsciously. And also, you know, certain tax benefits, so it'd be helpful but giving serves you just as well as it serves others.
Mendhi Audlin 2:43
Why Why? Why did you choose giving, like what's going on with you? What's your background with giving and generosity that inspired you to write this book?
Unknown Speaker 2:52
That's a great question, but also a very cool personal one. So it goes way back to just my parents, you know, my parents have always taught us to be giving people even from a biblical perspective, we were always raised that we need to tithe our resources back to the church. And I'm a firm believer that tithing is can be significant in our lives. In fact, I remember when we were gracious, probably in our 20s, we were tithing, it wasn't always easy. But we were sitting in church one day. Now, this isn't necessarily a biblical message. But we were sitting in church one day, and the preacher had that particular sermon up that day, it's like, you need to give, you know, like, we hear it all the time. And sometimes it's uncomfortable, sometimes it's not, but he was challenging us. And he basically said, you know, I challenge you to tie like you're supposed to which you know, from from the Bible, we were supposed to give 10% of our gross income back to the church that we serve, or that serves us. And he was challenging us to do it. We hear it all the time. But he added a caveat that ultimately ended up changing my life, from a giving perspective, that ended up going on into my business life. And he said, If you give over the next 90 days, the way that you know you're supposed to, I guarantee that you will have an abundance above and beyond whatever you gave. And he said, I guarantee it so much so that I will reimburse you all the money that you give to the church, if it doesn't happen. And I'm like, laughing at this guy not elbowing My Bride, but then feeling. Okay, maybe we need to maybe be a little bit more intentional. And sure enough, you know, within weeks, more money was coming in from unexpected places than we were giving in at the end of the 90 days. Or whatever. You know, we saw an abundance. So we were able to we stuck with it through the hard times and through the good times. So then when we launched Morgan James years later, I felt a true burning commitment that I not only need to continue to giving from a personal side, but I also felt like from a business perspective, how much more of a blessing that could be, could we be to others. And maybe it might come back to us in the same way. And sure enough, it did. Many many, many examples. One really cool one is we were still young, I believe when we published your book back in the late 2000s, you know, still not on many people's radar. But we were recognized for giving. NASDAQ invited us to ring the opening bell in 2008, because they saw our giving to Habitat for Humanity. And that was very, very significant. So we tiny little company going up to New York and ringing the opening bell, people thought we were going public, and they started to pay attention to us and bookstores were buying our books from authors they've never heard of before, because they saw us building houses down the street, from their stores, which really wasn't us it was habitat, because we chose habitat to be one of our building partners, or one of our, our, you know, giving partners, and it just opened up so many doors, it was almost laughable. But that's kind of the burst of seeing it and action, getting compelled doing it. And then having a reward. Oftentimes, I've sat down with the executive director of habitat, who's in the book performance driven giving, saying that I feel so guilty. I feel like I'm getting more from it than you are. And she says, I feel so guilty. I feel like I'm getting more than than you are.
Mendhi Audlin 6:05
Well, that's the flow. That's what generosity and tithing principles and abundance principles. That's kind of how they work. Yes. So this is called performance driven giving. So what do you mean by that? What is performance driven giving?
Unknown Speaker 6:17
So performance driven giving is on the heels of, as you mentioned, performance driven thinking, it's a mindset, you know, our bodies, our lives, our nature is we perform every day, we're, they're gonna perform well, or we're gonna perform poorly, it's a choice. And performance driven thinking is defined as the the will and the desire to do something. And with the will and the desire and action, you know, amazing things can happen. So following that theme into the giving side, we're thinking, Okay, you need to have the will and the desire to give stick to it. And real opportunity can open up for you, not only from a business perspective, but from a financial personal perspective. So it really is the same concept of just being intentional. Understanding that there's a need bigger than you that you have an opportunity to serve an audience, and where where can you find that off after that opportunity, and then executing, and then just sitting back, I say, sitting back kind of jokingly, but sitting back and seeing the magic happen because of it. So it's a mindset thing.
Mendhi Audlin 7:17
Yeah. And I know, we've talked a little bit about business this book is, I mean, you've got scriptural references in here. It's personal, it's business. It's organizational, its leadership. So I have a quote, this is from page 94. For those who are reading along, oh, my favorite page, yes, I knew it would be your favorite, I put a purple sticky on it just for you. So it says the ultimate expression of good thinking is giving the ultimate expression of good thinking is giving the purpose of a business is not just to make a profit, but to do good in the world. And you could probably say the purpose of life is not just to get by but to do good in the world. It's right, the result is that we do well, by doing good. So how does this relate not just to business, but also as individuals,
Unknown Speaker 7:57
from an individual perspective, it kind of gives you that joy to get up in the morning, realizing that not only you're serving your family while you're providing for your family, but you're serving your clients well with whatever widget that you might be selling. Because that power of giving opens up more opportunities to sell more, do more, reach more, have more impact on others. And then from a business perspective, realizing that for here's an interesting example that I alluded to earlier, if you've got two identical businesses or opportunities, same wages, same quality, same reputation, same price, everything, everything's equal, if this one company has a public giving aspect, in their business, and this one does not unconsciously, 90% of the people will gravitate towards the one that's giving something which increases not only, you know, the awareness of who you are the conversations about who you are, but also serves you, your family, your staff and their family, your clients and their families. And then those others that are being impacted because of the giving that you're doing.
Mendhi Audlin 9:01
Well, so I have now I have some, some tactical questions, some strategic questions. One of the things you talk about is the importance of mindset. So what's your best tip in terms of stepping into the mindset of a generous giver?
Unknown Speaker 9:14
So that's a that's a good one. It is a decision that you need to make everyday so similar to my my thinking, which goes way back to the 90s as well, you know, I am going to be absolutely incredible every day today is going to be a phenomenal day, I'm gonna have impact today. And many days, it's by faith, but every day it's on purpose. So the same thing was giving is choosing the right giving partner the right path or just being open to that tug of I need to give now, one of the people I'm most inspired by, and I think I may have mentioned her in the book. Hopefully, it's my bride. My Bride keeps a stack of gift cards in her car all the time. And if she's driving down a road and she sees somebody that looks like they're in need, it will tug on her spirit and she'll she will turn around and drive miles back to go back to make sure that She fulfills that giving, and it serves her and her spirit well, and it serves that particular person, sometimes unexpected, sometimes it may not have been the need, but who are we to decide on, you know, whether that's, that's relevant or not. So that that mindset is just being open to the possibilities. And being sensitive it same thing like with you're in a restaurant, obviously, giving as a part of, you know, restaurants, and we don't always realize that the other servers are not paid minimum wage there, they earn most of their income, you know, by by tips, but also just being aware of their presence, understanding or feeling that there might be a need, or if there's a personal issue that maybe you're intentional about being a little bit extra, you know, for that particular day could absolutely change somebody's life, those things just really come by just being aware of your surroundings and understanding that you have power, even if it's just a couple of dollars.
Mendhi Audlin 10:51
I love that example. And I think about some of the people in our community where we've done, we're talking about financial giving, but you in this book, it's a lot more than financial giving. So there's so many different ways that we can support each other and be generous, I know I have a group that they'll make bags for the homeless, that have water, water, bottle winds, and some crackers, or you know, some socks or razors, or toothpaste or whatever. And they always have them in the back of the car to be able to like your wife to be able to reach out and help those when they see that opportunity. So what are some other ways that generosity can take shape,
Unknown Speaker 11:28
so you just use sparked a thought. So you're right, it doesn't always have to be money. In fact, not everybody is in a position to be able to give extra money because times have been tough. I mean, heck, even COVID. The period of COVID was tough for us, even as a publisher. bookstores stay open by selling books, bookstores that can't sell books are closed, they returned books to publishers to give get their money back so they can pay their staff. So it was it was challenging. But you're right. There are other ways that you can give. In fact, for me, one of the things if I'm with your permission, of course, I have a gift for your audience. But this particular gift doesn't cost me anything, but hopefully has high value to you and you're in the audience. But I'd love to give you a copy of performance driven gift or giving performance giving giving by going to performance driven gift.com guys can get a free copy of that ebook. If you love it, tell your friends if you hate it, we never had this conversation. But hopefully that might have an impact. Excellent. Now, obviously, selfishly, I want to sell as many books as possible. But here's here's the way it looks for me from a grilling marketing perspective. I just gave hopefully a valuable gift to you unexpected. Hopefully you will love it. What I get out of it is the question of the warm fuzzies because that felt good. But also I know that readers will be good readers from a from a publishing perspective. People will talk about books they like. And I know 87% of people who read nonfiction books prefer print. So if you like it, you may end up buying the book, which then ultimately will come back to me. But really, ultimately, I want to encourage people to think about giving in a different way. Yes, it might sound a little selfish to think about what can I get because I give but the reality is that's how it works.
Mendhi Audlin 13:04
Yeah, that is how it works. I love it. So there's some mindset tips. So now in terms of just implementation, you know, so I may think, oh, I need my nest egg, or I need my margin or, you know, like, Does giving really work for me? How do we get into that habit of being givers,
Unknown Speaker 13:21
the habit is most important, making it easy for yourself, building it into the budget if necessary, but being intentional, you know, having that mindset. But here I'll give an example how I got involved with Habitat for Humanity. So I'm a publisher, as some of you may have heard heard, publishers aren't always known for giving back but I came to the came to the market with the intention of like, well, who can I give? Who can I support? What entity so I chose something that meant something to me. So I've always been a big fan of homeownership. I know the power of community in homeownership. I bought my first house when I was 20 years old, instilled by my parents that that was a value, which I still believe so I'm thinking and back in the early days, not only was I a home builder, I was also a mortgage banker, which is related to building business. And it wasn't in banking when I ended up first starting to write books, but I was close to that space and still feel that way. So I chose Habitat for Humanity as my hopeful partner. So little owe me brand spankin new company have nothing to offer and don't have excess cash at this point. And I call up habitat and says I want to give you stuff. And they're like, well, thanks. But less you can commit to $6,000 a year and I'm not throwing habitat under the bus, you have to have parameters. They said, Well, we really don't have the bandwidth to help you help us, you know, and I'm like, crushed. Like, where they went that idea. I don't have 600,000 hours yet, but maybe one day, you know, but I didn't have it. So they then said, however, which I love the however part. Why don't you connect with one of your local affiliates and see if there's something that you might go to work together because this is the stuff that we grew on. This is who we are and this is how we became who we Aren't today and how we're serving so many people, but from a corporate perspective, yada, yada, yada. And I'm like, Okay, I'll do it. So I knew our local affiliate, didn't know why didn't start there first, but I'm thinking, I'm a national company. So I go to local affiliate, I just share my thoughts. I said, I don't have anything to offer you. But I do know that habitat needs funds, of course, awareness and opportunity for people to learn about it. Well, I guess it's the same thing as awareness. There were three things funds, awareness, and volunteers. I said, Well, what I can do is, you know, we're book publisher, republishing lots of good successful books, I'd love to just put you, you know, on the back of our books, and say that, hey, we're raising awareness for habitat. And as I start to become successful, I promise I will donate money. And she embraced me, she said, this is exactly what we need. We need awareness, we need this and that. Yeah. So in the books, we put a little statement in there about the mission of habitat, why was important to me, encouraged people to donate, but encouraged people to volunteer because they, you know, they do a lot of volunteer opportunities, whether they're team building, or just individual, you know, individuals getting out there to help. And then, as we grew as a publisher, we've been able to continue to give more, but it started from that I had nothing to offer, but an idea. And that was my initial gift to them. But they ended up giving me the gift of how I can make it happen. And it just grew
Mendhi Audlin 16:22
from there. I love it. You can start where you are and start small. You talked about baby steps. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 16:26
And they become small wins, which is a big part of performance driven thinking. But yeah, absolutely.
Mendhi Audlin 16:31
I love it. Okay, so we did mindset, we did some tactical things. Also talk a little bit about receiving generosity, for those of us who we love to give, we give, give, give, give, give very, very generous. But when it comes back to us, maybe we're not quite as open.
Unknown Speaker 16:46
Yeah. And that's funny. That's, that's the nature of of givers is that receiving can be hard. And for us, we're like, no, no, you know, I may not need this, or I'm not worthy, you know, but the reality is, if you just kind of look at it from the original perspective of why you're giving a look at it from their shoes, they may need the blessing more than you. Because it is such a blessing, it is such a good thing and feeling to give. But the receiver part is it has to be intentional to it is hard to receive, I mean, you know, I I often will try to give in any way that I can. And it's, and I'm still struggling with receiving. And I have to understand that this isn't about me, this is about them, and I can gratefully take it. But it is also the mindset that you'll find that if when you start releasing those barriers that you don't always have to be the one giving, even though I'm teaching giving, and be a gracious receiver, it can ultimately have an impact. And you may not realize why that why you needed that. Or you may not realize the blessing that somebody was having by facilitating that they may have been giving a lot of their resources to you. Just like you might be doing for others, but be open to recognize the situation. maybe be a little bit patient not to act so quickly. If somebody else wants to pick up the check. Not that you have to be obvious and kind of fight about but those are the little things but be being a gracious receiver can have as much of a joy on your life, as you can imagine as being a giver. But it is intentional. And it is not easy.
Mendhi Audlin 18:16
Yeah, practice, practice and baby steps. Well, and I agree, like one of things I was reading in here that I absolutely aligned with is that idea that when you give when you are generous, that there's receiving in being able to give because it just feels so good. It feels so good to be generous. And if you don't, if you don't receive it, then you're denying someone that
Unknown Speaker 18:37
Exactly, exactly. And we don't want that we don't want to deny someone else's blessing, that's for sure.
Mendhi Audlin 18:42
I love it. What is your vision? Imagine a world where everyone gets this, you know, they get the ideas, they get the principles, they're putting them into action. What does that create in the world? What's your vision for what's possible?
Unknown Speaker 18:55
So you'll love this reference. So my vision for what's possible is it's certainly being demonstrated by organizations on a daily basis, like a company called bookshop.org. So bookshop is a bookstore online bookstore that opened up in February of 2020, the month before the world shut down. Oh, ouch. And I forget their exact company organization, Corp status or nonprofit status. But basically, they give 90% of their money away. And they operate on 10%. And they do it by supporting their competitors are what we lay people might think of as their competitors, their entire mission in life is to raise awareness and funds for independently owned bookstores. But yet, they've got this massive bookstore with every bookstore on the planet available. So how does that competition model support them? Well, here's how they do it. If you go to book shop.org, you'll find an incredible database of every independent bookstore in your community. And if you buy a book from bookshop.org, which you certainly could, they will send an email to you and say, Hey, thanks for buying Mindy. his book. Did you know there are here's here's five, here they are five independent bookstores that are right around the corner from you, why don't you go develop a relationship with them and buy your next book from them. And they end up giving money to those independent bookstores. So to date, over $20 million has been given back to independent bookstores, from the Prophet's bookshop. And any John or Jane Doe person can set up an affiliate program with bookshop.org. And they'll even give you a little piece to sell books on on the bookshop. So that's really cool for authors because then you can kind of double dip, you get a royalty from your publisher, and you get a little commission on the front end from selling it, which is awesome. But then they still give money to the bookstore still raise awareness for those independent bookstores. And they even partner with the independent bookstores to help them create their own web presences on their platform to support their stores. It's like, that is what I want. I'm like, This is amazing. And if I could give away 90% of my money, I would I would have more than I could ever dream of. Yeah.
Mendhi Audlin 21:00
I love that. You talk about tithing, I've heard about reverse tithing is where you give away 90 And you keep 10 Instead of giving away 10 And keeping 90 It's exactly where I want to be one day, I need to that's on my bucket list, too. I love that idea.
Unknown Speaker 21:14
bookshop is amazing. But they're living that 9010 rule. I love it.
Mendhi Audlin 21:19
I love it. And I didn't know about them. So I'm gonna go poke around and see see, connecting is an act of generosity. Sharing ideas is an act of generosity.
Unknown Speaker 21:30
Hey, man, how you having me on here?
Mendhi Audlin 21:32
Yes, I love it. I love it. I love the opportunity to share good things to share your book. And to let people know about this. I think there's a lot of people who whether you're in a nonprofit organization, or you're with a faith community, or a business and entrepreneur, this the ideas in this are so universal, that it's exciting to share it. So the the podcast is called What if it all goes right? And we always conclude with a process that we call what if upping which is where we generate, what if ideas around whatever the theme is? So the theme for this week is generosity. You have any what ifs, like what are some possibilities that come to you for what's possible. When people really step into generosity?
Unknown Speaker 22:20
I tell you what, one of the things that's that could be possible with stepping into generosity is easing tensions and conflicts, relieving stress for both you and the giver. You know what if you could go out, go throughout your day, and have a positive wake behind you have lives that are changed just because you walked into their lives? Again, whether you're giving financially or time or resources, you know, what if you could change 10 people's lives by just going throughout your regular day, and they end up changing 10 people's lives? Look, we're all be 12 months from now? Yes, a different world?
Mendhi Audlin 22:53
Yeah, a different world? What if you know, you talked about being generous with our spouses, with our kids, with our families, with our co workers with our, with the person, that Uber driver? Right? What if Yeah, there are ripples far beyond what we can ever truly know or imagine. So where can people go to learn more and to get access to the book.
Unknown Speaker 23:12
So I do have some, some resources for you. If you go to performance driven giving.com You can learn where the bookstores are that have the book, but also you can get some bonuses for buying the physical book, certainly want you to take the ebook, love it, have it, it's yours. But if you want the physical book, go to performance driven giving.com. I'll give you a copy of the audio interview. Some of the experts I interviewed in the book, which we didn't get chance to talk about but I interviewed both the executive director of habitat the executive director of Ronald McDonald House, I talked to CEOs of billion dollar companies on the giving side, I talked to CEOs of mega nonprofits who are on the receiving side all those audios are for free. And I think we've got a worksheet as you can go through to figure out how can I implement giving in my everyday life, I'll give that to you for free, but just go to performance driven giving.com To learn more about where the book is Intagram some of those resources.
Mendhi Audlin 24:05
Well, you just sparked an idea because as I was reading through some of these interviews, they're all fantastic. There was one that really touched my heart. Oh, tell me. So in one of these interviews, you have the author of freelance to freedom, and he talks about teaching generosity to his children and one of the things that he did, they would do this every Christmas Eve because, you know, kids Christmas Is You know, presents presents I get to receive receive receive, but he wanted it to be something more so they started this tradition. He and his wife were on Christmas Eve, they would go to you know, parts of town where they could see that there's probably some needs and they would could you can just open your eyes and see sometimes like who could use a little a little, a little gift and they would go around with $20 bills and candy canes and just give to people that they felt inspired and moved to give to and he shares a couple of examples of you know, seeing One woman who is clearly you know, it's late on Christmas Eve, she's barely got shoes on her feet, she's cold, and they give her the $20 and the candy cane and just the tears that come to her eyes just to be seen so much so that they kept circling back and giving her another one. Another one, because she was so grateful for the gift and it was so well received. Yeah. And then he also talked about that same night, going to a different area in that neighborhood and finding another woman. And he says that they gave her the $20 and the candy cane, and she told them, it was the first time anyone had ever given her a Christmas gift. Wow, yeah. And to be able to demonstrate the beauty of giving, not just to experience it ourselves, but to be a role model for it to be showing our kids. Yeah, this is a way of living that really is, as you say, our cup runneth over. And giving allows us to own that my cup does runneth over, even when sometimes it feels like maybe it doesn't.
Unknown Speaker 26:04
And what a powerful way to teach giving, we all know that there's a there's an aspect of retaining when you teach, but there's a significant aspect of retaining when you do so Vincent going through not only teaching his kid their principle, but involving them in the actual doing of it. They're changed forever. Yeah. Yeah.
Mendhi Audlin 26:23
The final question for you How has giving and generosity how has it changed you? How has it brought joy to your life,
Unknown Speaker 26:29
I tell you what, every aspect of giving just brings further joy. I had the privilege of actually joining the board of Habitat for Humanity. So not only being able to participate in giving funds to create the houses that were being done, but to celebrate with the families on their dedication day when we hand them the keys cut the ribbon. That is just powerful tears and tissues everywhere. But also from a team building perspective. So once a year, in Virginia, our our team will join in with habitat in something called the Women's build program, where Morgan James was sponsor house, all the women and the local community of Morgan James's staff will go build the house with the team, then they let men come to because it's about including them and not excluding men. But we actually have a chance to lay hammers to nails, raise the walls up a couple of times, they let me put doorknobs on what they were doing really important stuff. But it really is a great way to capitalize on the team building aspect of it. So for me, it becomes three fold the family, the warmth of giving, but actually putting the sweat into it to making it work and bonding with those that are doing it with you while we're serving others. There's just a level of joy and peace that comes with it. That's indescribable.
Mendhi Audlin 27:45
I love it. Well, thank you David, so much so great to have you on the show today.
Unknown Speaker 27:49
Oh, it's my honor. Hopefully I added some value and it's a privilege to see you again.
Mendhi Audlin 27:53
Well, yes, you did. Indeed. Thank you David Hancock for joining us today check out today's show notes for the links to all of David's free gifts for our What if up community The What If UP Club is a nonprofit organization on a mission to elevate humanity by spreading hope building connection and inspiring positive change this podcast as well as our What if up community is made possible because of the generosity of our members and listeners like you? If you want to help bring more messages like this to people around the world? You can donate today at what if up.org/donate Thank you for tuning in. What if joining us today inspires one bold idea for unleashing the power of generosity in your life and beyond? I'm Mendhi Audlin I'll see you next time right here on what if it all goes right
Unknown Speaker 28:53
down to you chase your dream
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